Kurnos’s reign was only days old, and he had already doubled that number. Written on the parchment were two names- hers, less the title of First Daughter, and that of Brother Beldyn.
Tavarre reacted quickly, rushing to catch her as her knees buckled, but he couldn’t stop the parchment from dropping from her hands. The wind caught it, sending it soaring over the keep’s walls. She watched it spin away.
“No,” she murmured. “It has to be a mistake.”
The baron didn’t reply, but his grip tightened. It was a familiar gesture, one of kinship. They were both outlaws, now. She shuddered at the thought.
Then another occurred to her. “Beldyn. Does he know?”
“No,
She nodded, then took a deep breath, and pushed away from Tavarre to stand on her own. “Come on, then,” she said, turning. “We’d best-”
A sound rose, eerily filling the air as it echoed among the hills: the mournful howl of a wolf. Hearing it, Tavarre stiffened and muttered a curse.
“What was that?” Ilista asked as the howl died away.
“A signal,” the baron replied. “The sentries have returned.”
He whirled, his cloak flapping, and hurried up the steps to the battlements. Ilista followed, hardly breathing as she looked down from the keep into the vale below. In the distance, two frothing horses were galloping along a trail to the village. One was a bandit, cloaked and leather-clad, but the midday sun’s light glinted off the other’s armor, and she knew it was Gareth, come back early from his sojourn to the highroad.
Ilista swallowed as the riders charged toward Luciel. Already she knew what they were going to report, and she saw her knowledge mirrored in Tavarre’s pale face as well. The
They met down in Luciel, and gathered inside the tavern- Cathan and Gareth, Tavarre and Vedro, Ilista and Beldyn. Caked in road-dust, the Knight drank a flagon of raw wine to moisten his throat, then told what he had seen. Cathan nodded breathlessly as the others stared in shock.
“Well,” Tavarre said when he was finished, and sighed.
“Perhaps they won’t come here,” Ilista said. “This is a small town…”
“They’ll come,” Vedro growled.
Everyone looked into the room’s corners, trying not to meet one another’s gaze. In the end, it was Beldyn who coughed softly and spoke.
“We must leave, then,” he said. “All of us.”
Tavarre looked up, meeting the monk’s burning gaze. After a moment, he nodded and turned to Cathan. “Did they see you?”
“No, but they’ll find the bodies of their men,” Cathan replied, “and we left tracks.”
Vedro cursed, slapping his thigh in frustration. “It’ll have to be tonight, then. They’ll send riders ahead and have our heads if they find us here.”
“Where can we go?” Gareth asked.
“Govinna,” said Tavarre, running a hand through his dark, curly hair. “Ossirian will take us in-and he has to be told the army’s in Taol.”
Dista cleared her throat. “You’re all forgetting the
“Only eight,” he replied.
Vedro swore again, and the others slumped, looking defeated. They looked at one another hopelessly, and Dista could tell they were all sharing the same terrible thought The sick couldn’t make the journey, but sunset was only three hours off. Already Beldyn looked tired, and wisps of holy light clung to him like clouds to the peak of a mountain. His strength was leaving him. No one wanted to say the words that flashed through their minds, though it was the only choice left. They had to leave the eight sick people behind, if the rest of Luciel were to live.
Beldyn’s mouth hardened into a line, however, and he pushed away his mug of wine, untouched. “Bring them,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“What?” Ilista asked as everyone turned to look at him. “Beldyn, don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have the strength right now-”
He glared back at her, and her voice failed her. There was something terrible in his gaze, a ferocity she hadn’t seen before.
“I said I’ll take care of it,” he declared. “We’re not leaving anyone.”
Dista wanted to protest, to talk sense into him, but the blaze of his eyes stilled her tongue. It was a fanatic’s look, and it made her uneasy.
Glancing around the room, she saw the rest of them watching her hopefully. They wanted to believe-and who was she to deny them? Looking back at Beldyn once more, the fierceness in his eyes, she could only nod and sigh.
“Very well, then,” she said. “Do as he says.”
The rest of the day passed quickly. From the wall of keep Tavarre winded a long brass horn, sending its clarion blare ringing out across the vale. Men and women came running, emerging from houses and shops throughout the village. The bandits and Gareth’s Knights took control of the situation, gathering the villagers in Luciel’s central yard, sending runners to fetch food and blankets and fill skins with water from the town well. The scant survivors of the plague, barely two hundred in all, looked around nervously, not sure what was happening.
Clad in chain mail and a long riding cloak, his sword hanging at his side, Tavarre strode into the midst of his vassals and stepped up on a tree stump, waving for silence. He got it at once, though many darted glances about, searching for Beldyn. The monk had disappeared that afternoon, and no one had seen him since. Now the sky was red, the sun gone behind the distant Khalkists. Night would come soon, and Luciel’s folk whispered fearfully as they turned listen to the baron.
He.’d barely finished explaining about the army and the need to flee when the murmurs turned into a rumble of outrage.
“Leave!” shouted an old man, his bald head wrinkling with worry. “I’ve lived in this vale all my life!”
A young woman stepped forward, shifting a squalling baby on her hip. “Govinna is too far! We’ll never get there with winter coming!”
“What about them?” demanded a stout, severe-looking matron. She stood near a cluster of bodies near the middle of the yard: the plague’s eight remaining victims. They were an awful sight, gaunt and wasted, four men, three women, and one child, coughing and shivering where they lay atop bedrolls the bandits had spread out for them.
“They can’t make the journey!”
Standing near Tavarre, Ilista swallowed, knowing the woman was right. The sick were too many. Beldyn might be able to lay hands on three of them, maybe four, but eight? It was more than he could handle. Though she knew there was no hope, one thing kept her from shouting it out-Beldyn’s eyes, the stubborn ardor shining from them.
He appeared then, even as the villagers clamored and Tavarre tried to calm them down. At first, only a few folk saw the monk, standing at the yard’s edge with his hands folded inside his sleeves, but when he stepped forward the mob grew silent and turned away from their baron to stare in awe.
Beldyn made his way through the crowd, which parted for him gladly. A few people dropped to their knees, while others whispered to one another, their voices tinged with wonder. As she watched the adulation in the borderfolk’s eyes, Ilista had the feeling of having started something she could no longer control. They might balk at Tavarre for saying they had to leave Luciel, but she knew they would follow Beldyn across Ansalon, if he asked. Ilista’s hand strayed to her medallion as the monk stepped up to the dying on their pallets.
Please be right, she thought, not wanting to consider what might happen if Beldyn proved wrong.
